The Georgia Department of Community Health awarded a $250,000 Rural Hospital Stabilization Project grant to Bacon County Hospital and Health System to relieve cost pressures on the emergency department and ensure that the best, most efficient treatment is received by patients.

The "Phase 3" FY18 project is a one-year collaboration with the State Office of Rural Health, the Georgia Department of Community Health, and Gov. Deal's Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee. The project will incorporate a "hub and spoke" model to improve the experience of care, improve the population health, and reduce the per capita costs of healthcare for the community. It will implement care coordination strategies based upon the principle of the delivery of "the right care, at the right time and in the right setting."

The RHSP team at Bacon County Hospital and Health System will incorporate robust patient data into a comprehensive assessment to understand what is driving health in the community and prioritize those issues that require the most urgent attention.

The assessment will enable the RHSP team to build upon the efforts of Phase 1 and Phase 2 RHSP hospitals to provide a customized, community health intervention that allows for the creation of community health "spokes," where Bacon County Hospital is the "hub." These key determinants of health may include local government officials, major industries, secondary and postsecondary school systems, fire/EMS, police, and home, public, and behavioral health organizations.